Just My Imagination
by PBContessa
Summary: "You can't believe everything you see." AU. Sydney and Vaughn both imagine each other over the course of her missing two years. Every step that brings them closer to each other is a step away from who they used to be.
1. Chapter 1: S

Title: Just My Imagination

Summary: "You can't believe everything you see." AU. Sydney and Vaughn both imagine each other over the course of her missing two years. If you've read any of my other stories, you'll soon realize that I'm a little obsessed with the "After you died, I used to talk to you" idea, and this is just one of many spins that I've taken on that storyline. Maybe I'm just disgruntled about the half-hearted explanation about Sydney's missing two years. Also, I think that the implications of Sydney's relationship with Simon weren't fully explored. Whatever the reason, this story emerged.

Timeline: Sydney's missing two years

Disclaimer: Alias and the characters are not mine.

Rating: R for language/sexual situations'

Soundtrack: "Linger" and "Just My Imagination" by the Cranberries

* * *

Part I

_S._

Sydney Bristow always had an active imagination. As a child, she had been naturally shy, and after the "death" of her mother she had withdrawn even further. She used to picture her mother, after she had left. When Sydney delivered the closing line in her school's Thanksgiving play, Laura had been in the front row, beaming and applauding louder than anyone. During her Girl Scout bridging ceremony, it was her mother who had pinned the badge on her vest. As she grew older, Sydney had mostly outgrown the habit, but in the most important moments of her life she still pictured her mother standing there, with soft brown curls and a dimpled smile. In the briefest of moments, the time she took first at the state cross country meet, the day she moved into her dorm at UCLA, the morning of her undergraduate graduation, she had seen her mother, if just for a second.

It would seem as if old habits really did die hard. But it wasn't Laura Bristow that she was envisioning now. It was Michael Vaughn. She didn't know how many days she had been held captive that first time that she imagined him there. What she did know was that it had started after the fourth consecutive round of electroshock. Laying on the cold, unforgiving floor of her cell, her body convulsing involuntarily as the aftereffects of the torture coursed across her nerve endings, Sydney had closed her eyes, and felt him there. It was his hands that she felt first, the fingers of his left intertwining with hers while his right smoothed the dirty hair that was matted to her temple. She stilled, worried that she had broken already, that her mind had already snapped. "Shh, it's okay Syd" she heard his voice whisper as the tremors shook her body once more.

"Vaughn?" she asked quietly, trying to rein in the hope that was welling up within her. It was too dark to see, so she turned, reaching out for him. She felt nothing but the rough concrete of the wall and this time it was a sob that wracked her chest instead of the residual voltage. He was gone. But the next time she was shoved to the floor of her cell, feeling as though fire was coursing through her veins, he was there, she felt his hands on her face and his breath on her neck as he murmured, "Baby, I'm here." She shuddered and cried, the tears burning the open cuts marring her cheek. And it was as if he were right there, his fingertips on her skin and his voice so strong and sure in her ear. Yet when she reached out to touch him, there was nothing and she was alone.

She learned then, what the rules of engagement were. Her mind could project him, would remember how he felt, how he looked, how he sounded. But for all her imaginings, she couldn't make him quite real enough to touch. It was one thing to recall, achingly, how it had felt when he touched her, but it was another to make a complete incarnation of the man she loved. She was crazy, she knew, but not that crazy. So, she settled, learning to make do with what she had because he was the only thing that kept her going. Through the daily routine of drugging, beating, electroshock, and starvation, he was there, silently holding her together. It was his eyes that she looked to when she felt as though she was on the verge of falling apart and it was those green irises that were her anchor. She didn't understand it, but that didn't matter. He was a hallucination and he was also her tether to sanity.

As her captor's voice repeated over and over, "Your name is Julia Thorne" it was Vaughn's voice who whispered back, "You're Sydney, you're my Sydney." She was his, and he was hers for as long as she could remember the scent of his cologne and the scratch of his stubble on her skin. On the day they tested her loyalty, he stayed by her side, giving her a small nod as she grasped the knife in her palm that was slick with sweat. "You know you have to" he quietly urged, brown eyes meeting green, and she knew that he was right. His hand stayed on her elbow as she drove the blade home.

She was surprised that he hadn't left her by the time she escaped to contact Kendall. He hadn't spoken, but he was always there. There was a fear inside of her that she thought was rational, a worry that if he left he'd take with him the dam that was keeping nine months' worth of demons at bay and Julia Thorne would come crashing down. She needed him, the desperation building until it was a physical ache within her. '_He loves me, nine months is nothing'_ she told Kendall, and even though he had never said those words, she believed them with all that she had. She had to. She wouldn't even let him say it, not for all the nights he held her in her cell while she felt like she might die, because when she heard it for the first time, she wanted it to be real.

He held her hand on the drive from LAX, the pressure of his thumb as it rested across her knuckles a reassurance that this was almost over. She would see him soon and he wouldn't be imagined. The arms he wrapped around her would be real, the voice she heard wouldn't just be in her head, and when she touched him, he wouldn't disappear. As she shifted the car into park, she could feel her heart beating painfully beneath her ribs and had to bite her lip to steady her breathing. For all the comfort her projection of him had given her these past nine months, for all the pain he had soothed and the hope he had fostered, it wasn't enough anymore. She needed him. It made no sense, she knew. She had spent almost a year without him and yet this half hour spent waiting for him to show seemed longer and more unbearable than those months of confinement. And then, he was there.

He was more perfect than she had imagined. Her breath hitched, and the weight of his hand atop hers had dissipated. She no longer needed dreams, she had reality. Then, there was another, a reality that she had never considered but was now coming painfully into view. The breath left her chest along with all of her resolve as she saw his lips crash against the other woman's, the way she had envisioned him greeting her millions of times in her mind. As restless as she had been mere moments before, now she was still, paralyzed by the sight of the man she loved and the woman in his arms. She recognized this feeling from the aftermath of particularly grueling torture sessions; pain so acute, so consuming that all that was left was numbness, her mind blocking all feeling from her consciousness because processing it would destroy her.

Her eyes briefly registered the sight of others surveilling the couple and she knew she had to move. She dialed Kendall's number without thought, her voice flat as she struggled to recall how to speak. '_I'll do whatever you want.' _She felt a gentle touch against her hand as she shifted the car into reverse. Without looking, she knew who it was, feeling his guilty stare and the tentative conciliation he offed with a gentle squeeze of his fingers around hers. She tore her hand away and they left, needing to be anywhere but there.

He didn't dare speak and she kept her eyes fixed firmly on the Pacific Coast Highway. Her knuckles were white as she gripped the steering wheel. _'Don't think', 'don't feel.' _This was her mantra now, but it wasn't enough. When she felt the telltale sting at the corner of her eyes, she bit her lip so hard that it drew blood. Its coppery taste coated her tongue, giving her another sensation to focus on. _Look at the road, taste the blood, grip the steering wheel_. She refused to let him see her cry, yet, maddeningly, she couldn't get him to leave her peripheral vision. She was flying now, thinking maybe if she drove fast enough that he wouldn't be able to keep up, that he'd dissipate into the wind whipping through the open windows and she won't have to remember what she just saw. The odometer hit 93 before his voice sliced through the tense silence.

"Sydney, slow down." She opened her mouth to speak but her voice caught and she felt the tears well up again so she pressed her lips tightly together and remained silent. They made it another four miles before she began to slow, dropping to 80, 60, 40, and then she pulled over onto an outlet overlooking the ocean. Gravel sprayed beneath her tires as they skidded to a stop and she couldn't see because the tears were coming, streaming down her face in unstoppable mess. "Syd" he pleaded softly, reaching for her, and she broke away, the car door slamming behind her. There was nowhere to go but the edge so he caught up to her quickly, coming to stand at her side on the cliff as waves collided with the rocks below. "Sydney" he whispered again. The heels of her palms were pressed against her eyes as she shielded her pain from him, taking a moment to compose herself before running her hands down her face. She exhaled, long and ragged, before turning to face him.

"What the fuck, Vaughn." Her voice was surprisingly controlled despite the fact that the rest of her looked like she was falling apart. No reply. "Nine months" she shook her head bitterly. "Nine fucking months, that's all it takes for you to forget me? I was _tortured_, Vaughn, I spent almost a year sleeping on concrete and eating dog food but I kept telling myself that I would be okay. That I had to stay strong because you were out there, you were looking for me, and you'd be there any day now." She swiped angrily at a tear that escaped and turned away from him, crossing her arms across her body for support. "You didn't look at all, did you?"

"You don't really believe that." She ignored him, fumbling in the pocket of her coat and retrieving a crushed pack of cigarettes. Sydney didn't smoke, but Julia does, and right now she needed a distraction. Silently cursing herself for her breakdown, she tipped out a single cigarette, replacing the pack in her pocket and pulling out a worn metal lighter. It was, along with the leather jacket and dark sunglasses, a permanent part of Julia's personal effects, a token she had supposedly taken off the corpse of her first victim. As much as she hated Oleg, she had to admire his attention to detail. Flicking the lighter so that the friction of the flint wheel against the roughness of her jeans sparked the wick to life, Sydney held the flame to the end of the menthol pressed between her lips. Another Julia-ism. The burn that hit the back of her throat as she inhaled was exactly what she needed, its pleasant bite distracting her from the agony she was barely containing.

"I was so stupid" she denigrated, smoke punctuating her words. _'He loves me, He loves me, He loves me'_ her own words played on a loop in her mind, mocking the hope she had once had in the fidelity of their young relationship. _'He will mourn and move on. Find someone else perhaps.' _After all, she had been gone for longer than the span of their time together. Did she really expect him to be waiting for her? At that moment, she realized the extent of her mistake, seeing how her time spent imprisoned had warped and aggrandized her interpretation of those short six months that she had shared his bed. He had never said that he loved her; it must have been her naivety and pain that convinced her that he had. The heat and the bitter taste filled her mouth, and she spat at the ground where she imagined his feet to be. Pulling the smoke deeper into her lungs, she began to reevaluate all of their memories, all of the moments between them that she had once thought so poignant and powerful. They were the sentimental wishes of a stupid girl who still believed in happy endings. A pier was just a pier. A man was just a moving structure of skin and bone. He could not be an angel. She realized that now and it made it hurt to look at him.

"I need you to not be here, anymore."

She wasn't completely crazy; she knew the man next to her was just an illusion. But it was only here that she was forced to consider that he had been one all along.


	2. Chapter 2: V

Part II

_V._

The bartender grabbed the glass from where it sat, sweating, atop the counter, dumping the dregs of the half-melted ice cubes and watered down whiskey down the sink. Snatching up a clean glass, he quickly shoveled in a scoop of ice and poured a fresh drink before sliding the liquor across the slick wooden bar to the man who had occupied the corner for the past hour and a half. The tumbler skidded, almost knocking into the full glass of cabernet sauvignon placed before the empty stool at the very edge of the bar. 'Merci' the seated man offered half-heartedly as the bartender hurried away with a shake of his head. He always paid for the wine, so older man really could not complain, but the task of dumping the full glass down the drain at the end of every night was starting to grow wearisome. That, and the fact that he had seemed to lose almost half of his bar space, as the man always commandeered the second to last stool, left the last one empty,_ and_ assured that no one wanted to sit to his immediate left by continuing to mutter to himself under his breath. Yet this half-crazed man was his most consistent and most generous customer, and so, the old bartender allowed him his charade. He never really tried to make out what the man was mumbling, but now and then, he caught snatches of speech between the din of the kitchen and the scattered conversation of the other patrons. What was interesting was that, despite the young man's unaccented French, the words he spoke to himself were always in English.

Tonight, it was "The Kings are in a bad way." While the barkeep had passable English, the words made no sense. _'What kings?' _he wondered as he twisted the cap off of a bottle of beer for another customer at the other end of the counter. He was sympathetic towards the man; often passing the time on his shift by wondering what it was that brought him to a point more suited to the older men who frequented the bar. _'Une femme, problement' _had always been his assessment, as one of the words most often overheard was either a name or a place. _Sydney, Sydney_. Whoever she was, or whatever had happened in Australia, this man could clearly not get over. He never looked up, just spent every night next to that empty seat and untouched glass of wine, staring at the wall, and muttering under his breath.

The other patrons always gave him a wide berth, which explained the surprise on the bartender's face when another man entered and took the taboo seat to the left of the crazy man. He ordered bourbon, on the rocks, mimicking the beverage clutched in the hand of his neighbor. The sound of his voice caused the mumbling to stop and for the first time all night, the younger man turned, slowly, away from the empty stool. He faced the bar too purposely, obviously avoiding eye contact with the man to his left.

"What are you doing here?" His voice was hoarse and slow, as if he was unaccustomed to speaking in anything over a whisper. The greying man waited until his drink was poured and placed firmly in front of him, taking a deliberate sip before answering, "Bringing you back. And saving your liver, apparently." The younger man took a sip as well, his voice more of a growl this time as he replied, "I'm not going back. I'm done with the Agency." The man on the left had another sip before surveying the other seated next to him. His eyes took in the wrinkled jacket, flitting first to the stubble on his cheeks and then down to the stains near the hem of the t-shirt. It was obvious that the man needed a shower and it was even clearer that his tip money was the only reason he was welcome here.

"Judging by the state of you, I doubt anyone will miss your contribution to the Agency. However, you do need to be properly debriefed before your resignation can be finalized. After that, you're free to return to drinking the rest of your life away." For the first time, Vaughn turned to look at the man whom he had once envisioned himself asking for his marriage blessing. "That's what this is about?" he asked in disbelief, eyes lazily bringing into focus the crisp black suit and apathetic stare so characteristic of Jack Bristow. "You came all the way to France because you need me to sit in a room and tell a bunch of suits how your wife betrayed us, your daughter's best friend was a double, and my girlfriend ended up as ashes?" In a second, Jack's hand fastened around Michael's throat, slamming his skull back against the hard surface of the bar and causing small flashes of light to appear in his vision.

"How _dare _you be so flippant about her?" the older man hissed, tightening his grip as Vaughn's own hands pried at the fingers crushing his neck. "Jack" he managed in a strangled breath, driving his knee into the other man's abdomen in an unsuccessful attempt to dislodge him. The bartender was shouting in angry French and the other men looking up from beers at the sound of the scuffle. Vaughn's breaths were coming in rattles now as Jack leaned in closer, bearing his weight down and applying more pressure. "You are pathetic" he spat before releasing his hold and stepping back with an extra shove against Vaughn's chest for good measure.

Vaughn's hands rubbed his neck where dark bruises were already appearing, his chest heaving in an attempt to regain his breath, clutching the bar behind him for support. "You've missed me, Jack" he wheezed. Jack straightened his tie and smooth down his suit jacket before responding.

"I didn't come here of my own volition, _Agent _Vaughn. If it were up to me, I'd let you keep wasting away in this hellhole, proving that you are every bit as worthless as I had always assessed you to be. But I was tasked by the National Security Council to bring you back to L.A. for your formal debriefing. Now, I can't understand why any woman, let alone an attractive and promising young NSC liaison, is so interested in meeting a drunken mess such as yourself. But I'm curious to find out, aren't you?" he finished pointedly.

Vaughn stared at a fixed point on Jack's tie, the recent loss of oxygen in combination with the buzz he had been developing since he woke up at noon, making his train of thought sluggish. Looking up, he made eye contact with the other agent, who responded with the slightest, almost imperceptible nod, and Vaughn was confirmed of his suspicions. He turned back to the bar, draining his glass of whiskey in a single gulp and crunching the ice between his teeth as he pulled a wad of crumpled Euros from his pocket. Slowly, he placed the bills onto the counter, recompense for both the drinks and the disturbance, with extra gratuity for the past six months that he had monopolized the latter half of the bar.

Jack headed for the door and Vaughn followed, falling into step with the man whose daughter he could not get over. He took one last, long, look at the untouched glass of wine and the empty place before which it stood. He would not be coming back.

* * *

Vaughn lay on his back, the sheet sticking irritatingly to the sweat on his abdomen. _'That dedicated enough for you, Jack?' _he thought bitterly, feeling the bile rise in his throat as he tried not to think about what he had just done.

_"You're unmotivated, apathetic, and uncommitted." _

_Jack angrily slammed the sliding door shut, closing them into the chain link cage at the far corner of the warehouse. "We've been over this, I'm not doing that" Vaughn replied with equal venom. _

"_We've reached a dead end. We need more intel."_

_Vaughn turned away and ran a hand down his face, pinching the bridge of his nose and sighing. "I've been working on it."_

"_Being Lauren's lunch buddy isn't going to cut it anymore" Jack answered sardonically. "We need her vulnerable, we need access to her home, her computer." Turning back, Vaughn matched the older man's uncaring gaze. "Here's an idea, why don't you and I switch roles? Isn't sleeping with the enemy more your area of expertise anyway?" Jack's fist swung in a wide arc from the right, but Vaughn had already dodged it, using the other man's momentum to slam him, face first, against the fence. Jack almost smiled. "You've been training. Good. If Lauren is as deeply embedded in the Covenant as we believe, you'll need to be prepared." _

"_There are other ways. I'm still grieving, Lauren knows that" Vaughn tried to reason, releasing Jack and stepping away. The senior officer looked at him, a mixture of sorrow and pity flickering momentarily behind his dark eyes. "It's been nine months. We need to move on."_

Plastering a grin onto his face, Vaughn leaned over, pressing a kiss to Lauren's cheek. "I'm gonna shower" he said lightly, exiting the bed before she had time to protest. Michael Vaughn was not in the mood to cuddle. Additionally, as this was their first night together, he wanted to avoid setting a precedent. "Okay" Lauren replied with a coy smile, hugging the sheets to herself in a way that made it very clear that she assumed she was staying over. Entering the master bath and shutting the door behind him, he padded across the cool tile, yanking open the shower curtain and wrenching the handle as far as it would go. As he waited for the water to warm, he grabbed the bottle of mouthwash from the cluttered counter, unscrewing the cap and taking an unnecessarily large swig. The liquid stung as he swished it around his mouth, but it was a feeling he relished. The burn felt as though it was scouring her taste from his lips and tongue and he spat angrily into the basin . His hands gripped the edge of the counter as he hung his head, not wanting to see the man mirrored back at him. Then, he heard a soft voice.

'_How was it?' _Vaughn pressed his eyelids shut, bracing himself to look up. He opened his eyes, seeing reflected in the mirror the image of a girl so beautiful it made his chest ache. Sydney stood behind him, wrapped in a silken robe, her copper hair falling freely to her shoulders. He shook his head. "Don't do this, Syd" he begged quietly, glancing at the door behind which Lauren lay. Sidestepping around her, he moved to the shower, biting back a groan as the scalding water hit his skin. Sydney leaned against the bathroom wall, watching him through the gap he had left in his haste to drag the curtain shut. Her image was the embodiment of the self-loathing and guilt that were clawing their way up from his stomach, and his breath came in gasps as he scrubbed himself raw.

"Don't do this" he repeated in a hushed whisper. "Sydney, everything I'm doing is for you." He heard her let out a short mirthless laugh as he ran the soap compulsively over his chest and arms. Closing his eyes, he turned his head away from her and into the water stream. The sound of her robe hitting the floor prompted him to look back, his breath hitching as she stood, bare, before him. She pulled back the curtain, stepping into the burning spray without flinching. It was as if she had walked straight out of his memory of their last morning together, when she had surprised him in the shower and made them late for work for the third time that month. Her image was seared into his memory, all at once painful and pleasurable. She was right in front of him, the way she had been that day, her hair darkening from the water and plastering to her neck and he watched, mesmerized, as the droplets ran down her shoulders and over her chest. Except she wasn't smiling like she had been that time. Instead, her eyes were full of sadness as she reached up and ran a hand gently down the stubble of his cheek, pausing for a moment at the dip in his chin. _'You can't have it both ways' _she said with a small shake of her head.

"Watch me" he replied through gritted teeth, leaning forward to capture her lips in a kiss, but she was gone and he was left alone. Bracing himself with his hands on the slick shower wall, his body shuddered at the loss of her presence. She was right and he felt like every step that he took in pursuit of finding her took him further away from the man he had been when he was with her. If, by some miracle, she was still alive, would she even want him anymore, used and broken as he had become? Her presence in his life had made him a better man but her absence had turned him into someone unrecognizable. Worse, his stomach turned at possibility that this was all a cruel trick, that she really was dead and he had just slept with a woman who had had a hand in her murder.

It wasn't until a sob caught in the back of his throat that he realized that he was crying. The tears had been instantly lost in the torrent pouring from the showerhead and streaming down his face. He hated the thought that he had pictured Sydney, perfect and beautiful, while his body still bore reminders of Lauren's touch. Vaughn felt a hand on his shoulder and he tensed, worried that Lauren had caught him off guard while he was lost in thought. But the pressure was comforting, lightly brushing the back of his neck as he heard Sydney murmur, _'I know, Vaughn. I know.' _He was too ashamed to look at her as he asked fearfully, "What if you are gone and this was all for nothing?"

'_It won't be for nothing' _she reassured. _'You'll have the truth. Even if I am dead, knowing for sure will give you closure. You'll be able to move on.' _Turning to face her, he fixed her gaze and his voice shook with earnest. "There's nothing to move on to. You're the only thing I care about."

She sighed the way she always had when he mirrored her stubbornness back at her. _'Fine then' _she relented, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek. _'If I am dead, promise me you'll get the bastards that killed me.' _He fought the urge to lift his hand and tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear, knowing that his touch would meet only empty air. Swallowing his disappointment, he looked into her eyes, drawing from her strength and renewing his resolve to do whatever it took to get her justice.

"I promise."


End file.
